Ill Will
by medea42
Summary: Set during the episode "Ill" Trent must adapt when real life is not kind.
1. Chapter 1

Ill Will by medea42

**Copyright Disclaimer: 2008.** All characters in this story are property of Viacom/MTV and originated by the cast and crew of the late 90s/early 2000's show _Daria_. They are not owned by me and there is no intention of profit from the distribution of this work of fan fiction.

**Author's Note:** Set during the episode _Ill_ this imagines what was going on in Trent's life around that time. Of note is that in this universe, Monique is not the fanfic stereotype of "evil." Monique happens to be a person with a history with Trent who, very clearly within the series, had stuff of her own going on.

* * *

Monique sat in the coffee shop, looking ghostly. Trent realized he hadn't seen her in full daylight since she'd moved back to Lawndale, and he was taken aback by her delicacy. He was hopeful about this daylight meet – she looked a bit nervous and this was their first personal meeting that had nothing to do with promoting their bands.

"Trent, hey!" Monique stood up, her boots squeaking as they brought them to equal height. She kissed him on both cheeks, and Trent thought he detected a hint of lingering, a slight breath released against his skin. His blood pulsed.

They sat, and Monique pushed a shockingly tiny coffee in front of him. "I hope you don't mind, I went ahead and ordered for you."

Trent raised an eyebrow. Was coffee really getting so expensive that a buck wouldn't cover it?(1) "Thanks," he said, knowing Monique was tacitly acknowledging he was broke – McGrundy's was getting progressively slower to pay him these days.

Monique leaned forward, her lips a little bit parted, and it was clear from the rhythmic bump in her slim neck she was nervous. This made Trent all the more hopeful that they'd end up watching the sunset together tonight, and if things went really well, the sunrise.

"I think we should quit hanging out for awhile." Monique grabbed her coffee and sucked it down, looking eager to have some way to occupy her hands.

Trent's mental sun rotation crashed and boomed, splattering pink oranges all over his mental walls. He took a generous gulp of the mini-coffee to gain a moment, but the coffee was not on his side. His eyes crossed as the bitterness seared the back of his tongue and then his epiglottis tried to escape through his nose.

Instead of gaining time for a cool response, he spewed across the table and onto Monique's shirt.

Monique jumped up, escaping some leftover coffee bursts. "Real nice Trent!" she snapped, and stomped away as Trent leaned over the table, clutching his throat in a futile attempt to patch the acidic holes burning his trachea.

Eventually he recovered enough to stagger out of the shop as the patrons stared in horror. Good god, he thought his face was going to fall off.

* * *

(1) _Daria_ was set around 1996, just before Starbuck's and raised coffee pricing was a cultural phenomenon.


	2. Chapter 2

The night that Daria disappeared was the Spiral's first night playing the Zen.(1) Jesse had lined up the gig – as always, he knew a girl who knew the owner and who was all too eager to see him swing his ax (2) as long as he played it with his shirt off. And better yet, they were actually going to pay the band. Which was good – he was looking forward to having a meal that he didn't have to literally scrape out of the fridge.

Jesse and Nick had wanted to change the band's name while they were setting up. By the intro, they still hadn't agreed. So Trent had to go to his fallback. "We're Mystik Spiral. But we're thinking of changing our name." Jane said that eventually that phrase was going to go on their banner. He made a mental note to hide the band signs from Jane.

After all the crap with Monique, it felt good to howl it out, to get that entire horrible moment of dumping without dating out of his body along with the vicious pain of coffee crawling out of his face:

"_I'm glad you're happy watching my pain/ burning crop circles on my soul's waves of grain/ We had no love scene but you've cut to the chase/ you're chopping off my nose to spite my face/ Ow, my nose! Ow, my face! Ow, my nose! Ow, my face! Ow..."_(3)

He didn't even care that the room wasn't packed. Jesse's little brother would have to do some promotion, if he could get the kid to quit "helping" with the lyrics. (4) Daria and Jane were there for amoral support and a few of the people were howling along. If they kept getting that kind of response they might even be able to turn down the amplifiers.

As he came to the end of his set, he heard Janey say "Get burger!" to Daria. That sounded good. Food and his nearest and dearest – it would be a great way to top off the night. It also felt like a zen sort of way to end the song.

Jane flagged him down at the end of his set. "Hey, did you see where Daria went?" she asked him.

"Didn't she go into the bathroom?" The small audience made it easy to see everything that went on from his vantage point on the stage.

"That was half an hour ago!"

"Huh."

"Hey Trent, could you help us get the drum set off stage?" Jesse was working up a sweat, the stage lights bouncing off of his muscular upper arms.

Before Trent could answer, Jane had bounded across the stage and was helping Jesse lift the drum kit off the floor. "You go look for Daria, I'll take care of Jesse."

Daria shouldn't have been too hard to find. The Zen was just a converted warehouse; all there was too it was the stage, a bar, the bathrooms and the rest was just a giant cement box where giant shelves lined with cereal boxes used to tower.

He saw some girl dripping black wander into the bathroom, so he assumed it was the lady's. He wasn't sure, as he'd seen girls and guys go in and out of there all night. He knocked on the door. "Daria, you in there?" he called.

The door whipped open and the girl dripping black attacked him with a Cthulhoid screech. "Have some respect for female modesty, please!"

Yeep! Female stuff. "Uh, OK," he mumbled, backing away from the closing door.

"Can't find her," he told Jane as he returned to the stage. "Maybe you can go into the bathroom yourself and see?"

Jane wrinkled her forehead. "I've been in there once. I'm not going in there again."

It was Labyrinth (5) law: if a creature guarded the swamp, stay out of the damn swamp.

They loaded the van and were walking around the corner when they saw Daria dashing out the back entrance.

"Daria!" Jane yelled from their place on the sidewalk.

Daria dived into the cab like a robber making off with the loot. Trent didn't know anyone could move that fast with those boots on; apparently that tiny body had built up some strength from wearing those weights on her legs for so long.

As the cab screeched away, he was aware that somehow, the weird black-haired girl was in their midst. Trent shrugged; in club life you wind up with random people hanging out with you all the time. That was the price of alcohol as a social drug and the inability of a person to hear you tell him or her to go away over loud music.

It made for a weird night. The black-haired girl kept "forgetting" Jane's name, and then "forgetting" her own name.

"Is she a cheerleader or something?" Trent whispered to Jane.

"Or something!" Jane whispered back.

Max and Nick became embroiled in an argument about the band's name that ended somehow in calling each other names until Trent had to confiscate their toothpicks.

But for all the weirdness, he had a full stomach for the first time in weeks and Monique for awhile was not on his mind.

* * *

1 The first time this club appeared in Daria it was billed "the Zen." Later in the series, it became "the Zon" and is frequently erroneously referred to as "the Zone." I explain this to myself as the club frequently changing owners.

2 Slang for "guitar"

3 Direct lyrics from the episode "Ill."

4 It's established in the _Daria Database_ that Jesse has a little brother, Danny, who is the official band promoter. Mostly this means he tacks posters to telephone polls, but it's evident Danny has possibly more vision than Mystik Spiral.

5 That movie with the puppets and David Bowie


	3. Chapter 3

Jane was never hard to live with, but the last couple days living with her had bordered on challenging. She'd wanted to talk a lot, and needed rides to the hospital pretty often. It was a little weird, Jane acting like a normal-needs child instead of a no-needs child.

"I still don't get why you won't let me come in with you," Trent had argued with her one day as he pulled up to the hospital visitor entrance.

"Because she's under enough stress!" Jane was firm. Trent didn't get how his presence could be stressful – yeah, Daria had a little thing for him, but she was cool. She could handle it.

Still, he was relieved when Jane thundered into his room on Friday. "Daria's out of the hospital!" It meant that his sister's heretofore non-existent social needs could again be filled by a person with different antisocial needs.

Trent stuffed his lyrics notebook back under his bed. Despite feeling more or less moved on from Monique, his head was still revolving around "woman in black" imagery. Apparently she was still in his system and it was getting stupid. He'd also had an ignominious moment with some enchiladas that were not wrapped properly before being placed in the back of the freezer and he was bitter about it. "Yeah? Are you going to go see her?"

"Actually, I was wondering if you'd give us a ride to Playhouse 99? (1) There's some obscure Fellini crap on, and I'd like to take Daria to see it and then for pizza. She'll want to get the hell away from her parents after all this."

Trent found his pants somewhere in the flotsam. "Yeah, sure. Did they ever find out what was wrong with her?"

Jane shrugged. "Just stress. The doctor gave her some pamphlet on anxiety and apologized for all the needles."

"Huh. I think I'll go up and say hello with you. She seemed so upset last week at the Zen."

Jane smirked. "And why are we such a concerned citizen?"

"Because Daria's your friend and you've been freaked out all week."

Jane didn't bother with denial. She hugged him. "Thanks for being a big brother without being, y'know, big brother."

"Anytime l'il sis." In his heart of hearts, Trent knew that while Mystik Spiral might go nowhere, his time with his sister was finite because she was going to some most definite somewhere. He also knew that Daria was a big part of her new ideas about going somewhere; if something happened to Daria that made Jane unhappy, it also made him unhappy.

"I'm coming up with you," he insisted as he pulled in front of the Morgendorffer household. "She's been in the hospital and it's the least I can do."

"Suit yourself," Jane said and bounded up the stairs ahead of him. The door was half open when he heard Jane say "Trent's giving us a ride."

He poked his head in. "Hi Daria." He was horrified to see the poor girl's face break out before his eyes. It was like she was a punchline in a cartoon universe.

Daria slammed the door in their faces, and he could hear her running away. Jane looked miffed. "Well isn't that nice!"

Trent opened the door and shoved his sister in. "Go after her. She needs her friend."

Jane opened her mouth to protest, and this time, Trent was firm. "I'm leaving you here. Call me if you need a ride home."

It's not like he didn't know what it was like to be humiliated in front of a person he liked. Trent checked his wallet, and found five bucks. Maybe he'd go for a cup of coffee. He chuckled, thinking of Daria's rash and the still-sore tissue on the inside of his nose. Maybe not.

* * *

(1) Lawndale's independent theater playhouse, referred to in the _Daria Database_.


End file.
